Different In His Case
by Jenwryn
Summary: Elizabeth/Rodney. He knows they all miss her, but it's different for him. Spoilers for eps 4.02 and 4.10, this is me trying to explain the whole Katie Brown "thing", and Season 4 as a whole thus far, to myself from a mcweir point of view.


_Disclaimer: All publicly recognisable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. Original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. Not beta-read; don't jinx, although corrective spells are more than welcome to be cast in my direction._

_A/N: In response to, and thus spoilers for, eps 4.10 "This Mortal Coil" and 4.02 "Lifeline". __This is sort of me trying to explain to myself the whole Katie Brown "thing" present in Season 4 thus far, and also of course looking at this particular episode from a mcweir point of view._

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**Different In His Case**

_You know, you're not the only one who misses her._ Radek had said that. Good at stating the obvious, Radek was, when the mood took him; it was one of his more irritating gifts. Of course, Rodney knew it was true. He wasn't a complete idiot – well, he wasn't an idiot at all, really – and despite popular belief he wasn't _entirely _insensible to the way the world around him functioned. He knew what Elizabeth Weir had meant to everyone else in the city. She'd been more than just the leader of their expedition: she'd been its backbone, its head, their mother superior and their lifeline. She'd been the reassuring voice at the end of an otherwise potentially impersonal radio system, and the small spot of hope in the midst of chaos. She'd been the one capable of holding them together with such apparent ease.

Oh, sure, perhaps he was elevating her now. Maybe he was making her into something greater than she'd ever been, but he didn't think so. After all, he'd already written it all down once before, in that book about her, the book that had said so much and so little. He'd written it then, when she was with them, and with him, which effectively disproved the theory that his memories were being altered by the circumstances. The book was his evidence that it wasn't him wearing the coloured glasses that absence creates. Besides… even if he were making something of a saint out of her, it didn't follow that he was unrealistic about her importance. He _knew _he wasn't the only one that missed her.

Still, it was different in his case.

The tears that welled up against the inside of his face, the tears that might never be shed, watered a grief like he'd never known. It was odd, really, how life kept throwing worse things at him like this. Always he told himself, _that's it, now, it can't get any more horrible_. And always, he was wrong. Carson, Heightmeyer, the usual everyday death and destruction that seemed to follow him around with magnetic attraction… but Elizabeth?

Nobody knew what they'd had between them, because that was how she'd wanted it. Not a soul suspected, and he would honour her memory by keeping it that way. Besides, for once in his life he was sure of what he'd felt – what he still felt – and that gave him an unexpected capacity to keep it all inside. Not that he'd ever been certain about where it was going, about what it all had meant, about what would happen in their future – the future now snatched from his grasp – but it hadn't mattered, because he _had _known what he felt, and he'd quite simply never felt anything like it before.

She'd made him promise, before she'd run from the puddlejumper and out of his life. She'd always been good at the clever little clauses of life's sticky moments, and he supposed he should have been prepared for her doing something like it. But it had taken him unawares, caught up in the moment, and so when she'd whispered in his ear that she didn't want him to end up alone, he'd argued but briefly. In the end he'd promised anything she'd wanted, because he hadn't really believed he'd ever lose her. He'd promised because he just wanted her calm down, promised because he had a bad habit of speaking before he thought. He'd promised not to end up alone, because Elizabeth knew how terrible he was at that kind of existence. He'd promised that he would be kind to Katie Brown.

Then she'd left, and then she'd been gone, and in the end he'd honoured her. He'd put on a brave face – he was better at that than people thought – and he'd moved his public attention back to the sweet little botanist, doing what the woman he loved had told him to do. He'd kept his word, and it was something to distract him from the pain, something like the job he did daily, all of it distractions. Sure, Katie was kind, and she seemed to genuinely like him.

But she was no Elizabeth Weir.

And all this time, deep down amongst the coils of his brain, while Katie bubbled along in that uncanny serene oblivion of hers, he'd clung to the belief that one day, one day, he and Sheppard would find a way to bring Elizabeth back. Find a way to return their mother superior to her rightful place. Ah, how she'd hated Rodney calling her that. So often she'd berated him for it, saying it was disrespectful of people's beliefs, saying it was ridiculous, saying that she didn't want to be put upon a pedestal by anyone, least of all by him. Least of all by the only man she could let her guard down with and be just herself and not his leader, be simply the woman in his arms and in his heart. But all the while as she'd reproved she'd smiled that white little smile of hers, the one that started with the crinkling of her eyes and then spread out till her very skin seemed to be laughing. God, how he'd loved her in a good mood.

All this time, he'd borne the certainty that she was out there somewhere.

And she had been. Just not like he'd imagined. It wasn't her. She wasn't his.

She was a copy.

Sometimes Rodney wondered how she'd known at the time. How had she known that she wasn't going to make it off the Replicators' Atlantis? What was it that had made her whisper sweet instructions in his ear before running out of the puddlejumper? How was it that she'd known it would come to this; known that she wouldn't survive; known what she was doing when she'd ordered him to be kind to Katie Brown?

Still, she'd known. And by knowing she'd condemned him to mourning her inside the privacy of his heart, mourn her in the same fashion that he had so very fiercely loved her, locked in their secret world for two.

They all missed her. But it was different in his case.


End file.
